Having spent the weekend discussing places we’ve lived, let’s turn our attention now to places we may live some day in the distant future. Or, dear baboons, places where other restless creatures already live. Places they may be longing to leave.
Which brings us to Kepler 22b, the most recently discovered “Goldilocks” planet – a place orbiting a different star where the temperature is ‘not too cold’ and ‘not too hot’. Initial observations indicate conditions could be favorable for human-like life.
That is, if the planet has a surface.
Dang! When it comes to the nuts and bolts of existence, there’s always that complicated bit about needing a surface to sit on. Not to mention some of the other necessary valuables, like having to have water to drink, food to eat and air to breathe. Air is especially important.
In writing about the notion of a “Goldilocks” planet, Dennis Overbye of the NY Times identifies an event that had to happen before life as we know it on Earth could get its start – The Great Oxidation.
“The seeds for animal life were sown sometime in the dim past when some bacterium learned to use sunlight to split water molecules and produce oxygen and sugar — photosynthesis, in short. The results began to kick in 2.4 billion years ago when the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere began to rise dramatically.
The Great Oxidation Event, as it is called in geology, “was clearly the biggest event in the history of the biosphere,” said Dr. Ward from Washington. It culminated in what is known as the Cambrian explosion, about 550 million years ago, when multicellular creatures, that is to say, animals, appeared in sudden splendiferous profusion in the fossil record. We were off to the Darwinian races. Whatever happened to cause this flowering of species helped elevate Earth someplace special, say the Rare Earthers. Paleontologists argue about whether it could have been a spell of bad climate known as Snowball Earth, the breakup of a previous supercontinent, or something else.
Eventually though, Earth’s luck will run out. As the Sun ages it will get brighter, astronomers say, increasing the weathering and washing away of carbon dioxide. At the same time, as the interior of the Earth cools, volcanic activity will gradually subside, cutting off the replenishing of the greenhouse gas.
A billion years from now, Dr. Brownlee said, there will not be enough carbon dioxide left to support photosynthesis, that is to say, the oxygen we breathe.
And so much for us.
“Even Earth, wonderful and special as it is, will only have animal life for one billion years,” Dr. Brownlee said.”
Which all seems rather wonderful and dismal at the same time. Clearly the clock is running and as many science fiction writers have already suggested, it is high time we start looking for another place to be before Earth becomes uninhabitable. Is Kepler 22b it? And in this time of ritual celebration, why is it that the major religions have traditional festivals that inspire and create a sense of wonder, while science offers us nothing except another episode of “MythBusters“?
Perhaps scientists should develop something celebretory that can spark the imagination of the unfaithful.
What would be one of the features of a festival built around “The Great Oxidation Event”? “Oxi-Claus?”
Trail Baboon 